The UAE has been ranked the top country in the Arab world for its preparedness for the future by the Future Readiness Economic Index report, produced by Washington-based Portulans Institute and Google. It placed UAE in the third position among 27 emerging global economies and 27th out of 123 other countries, according to a news report.
The primary objective of the report is to provide countries with a valuable benchmarking tool to assess their future readiness and serve as a guide to their strategy choices and policy decisions. It takes into account a country’s digital transformation, innovation and the ability to attract, grow and retain talent, and other factors for the ranking.
Among the emerging economies, Singapore topped the overall rankings, followed by Israel, UAE, China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Thailand, Russia and Turkey.
The UAE got the 16th position in terms of talent, 19th in infrastructure and institutions, 22nd in innovation and 26th in technology.In terms of human capital, the UAE scored high in terms of its ability to attract talent (4th), as well as grow human skills (6th). However, it didn’t perform as good in terms of its capacity to retain talent, ranked 47th.
The news report quoted Ohood bint Khalfan Al Roumi, minister of state for government development and the future as saying that the UAE’s high performance on the future readiness indicators reflects the “ambitious vision and philosophy of the UAE’s leadership to prepare for the future”.